National Reviews Kevin Williamson believes Donald Trumps appeals to the white working class are immoral because that demographics way of life deserves to die out.
In a featured article for the prestigious conservative journal entitled The Father-Fuhrer, Williamson seeks to rebut criticism that he and other conservatives dont articulate any policies that would appeal to Trumps blue collar supporters.
Williamson, a long-time critic of The Donald, essentially agrees that he doesnt support any policies or rhetoric directly tailored to the working-class particularly about jobs being taken by outsourcing and immigration because it would be wrong to do so.
It is immoral because it perpetuates a lie: that the white working class that finds itself attracted to Trump has been victimized by outside forces, the NR roving correspondent writes. [N]obody did this to them. They failed themselves.
He then goes on to state that all the ills associated with downscale whites are a result of that classs inherent depravity.
If you spend time in hardscrabble, white upstate New York, or eastern Kentucky, or my own native West Texas, and you take an honest look at the welfare dependency, the drug and alcohol addiction, the family anarchywhich is to say, the whelping of human children with all the respect and wisdom of a stray dogyou will come to an awful realization. It wasnt Beijing. It wasnt even Washington, as bad as Washington can be. It wasnt immigrants from Mexico, excessive and problematic as our current immigration levels are. It wasnt any of that, Williamson state.
He then goes on to make the conclusion that its great these communities are dying out because they have a warped morality and are a dead weight on the economy.
The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die. Economically, they are negative assets. Morally, they are indefensible, the conservative writer says. The white American under-class is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main products are misery and used heroin needles. Donald Trumps speeches make them feel good. So does OxyContin. What they need isnt analgesics, literal or political. They need real opportunity, which means that they need real change, which means that they need U-Haul. If you want to live, get out of Garbutt [a blue-collar town in New York].
This article isnt the first time Williamson has harshly criticized trying to appeal to working-class whites. In one February article, he said that this class is made-up of economically and socially frustrated white men who wish to be economically supported by the federal government without enduring the stigma of welfare dependency. He also claimed that their interests have no place in the mainstream of American conservatism and, in a follow-up post, said that the only message conservatives should give them is get a job.
While Williamson blames the people living in run-down white communities for their own woes, he does not apply the same principle to run-down minority communities. In his book and articles on the failures of Detroit, for instance, the National Review writer blames progressivism and unions for ruining the predominately African-American city.